The Star Wars Unit Thread

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Chiss Ascendancy:


Prosvoli-class Heavy Frigate
preview gif


Frouro-class Frigate
preview gif

O========================O

Zann Consortium:


Interceptor IV-class Frigate
preview gif

O========================O

Mandalorians:


Kandosii-type Dreadnought
preview gif


Marauder-class Corvette
preview gif


Keldabe-class Battleship
preview gif

O========================O

Old Republic:


Venator Star Destroyer
preview gif



Hammerhead-class Cruiser
preview gif


Stalwart-class Rothana Destroyer
preview gif

O========================O

Empire:


Victory II-class Star Destroyer
preview gif


Vindicator Star Frigate
preview gif


Nebulon B2 Frigate
preview gif


Allegiance-class Battlecruiser
preview gif


Victory II-class Star Frigate
preview gif


Bellator-class Star Destroyer
preview gif

O========================O

Alliance/New Republic:


MC80 Liberty-type Star Cruiser
preview gif


MC30c Frigate
preview gif


Assault Frigate Mk. I
preview gif


Nebula-class Star Destroyer
preview gif

O========================O

Confederacy of Independent Systems:


Pinnace-class Geonosian Corvette
preview gif


Bulwark Mark I Battleship
preview gif


C-9979 Landing Craft

O========================O


In Progress:
Chiss units

Shortlist:
Crusader-class corvette
Dauntless-class heavy cruiser
Dauntless-class light cruiser
MC80B star cruiser
Endurance-class fleet carrier
Bothan assault cruiser
Proficient-class cruiser
Sovereign-class star destroyer
Dominator-class Star Destroyer

Planned (in no particular order):
Captor-class heavy munitions cruiser
Crusader-class corvette
Quasar Fire-class cruiser-carrier
M12-L Kimogila heavy fighter
Separatist supply ship
Providence-class dreadnought
Lucrehulk-class droid control ship
M3-A Scyk fighter
Golan I, II, III
XQ5 Platform
Tector-class Star Destroyer
MC40a light cruiser
Carrack cruiser
Ton-Falk-class escort carrier
Subjugator-class heavy cruiser
Liberator-class cruiser
MC80B star cruiser
Corona-class frigate
Majestic-class heavy cruiser
Endurance-class fleet carrier
Eclipse-class star dreadnought
Secutor-class star destroyer
Procursator-class star destroyer
Mediator-class battlecruiser
Titan-class battlecruiser
Corellian Corvette (Empire livery)
Loronar Strike Cruiser
Strike-class medium cruiser
Vengeance-class dreadnought
Gallofree GR-75 medium transport
Aurek-class tactical strikefighter
Enforcer-class picket cruiser
Interdictor-class star destroyer
Lancer-class frigate
Gladiator-class star destroyer
Raider-class corvette
Bellator-class dreadnought
Bothan assault cruiser
Proficient-class cruiser
Galaxy Gun
Sovereign-class star dreadnought


Planned for Old Republic Expansion:
Arquitens-class light cruiser
Resolute-class Rothana battleship
Procurator-class star battlecruiser
Mandator II-class star dreadnought
Praetor-class battlecruiser
Centurion-class battlecruiser
Dynamic-class freighter
Foray-class blockade runner
Inexpungable-class tactical command ship
Paladin-class destroyer
Interdictor-class cruiser (Sith and Old Republic liveries)
Praetorian-class frigate


Planned for Yuzzhan Vong Expansion:
Koros-Strohna (worldship)
Suuv Ban D'Krid
Miid Ro'ik
Uumufalh
Matalok
Clustership
Ro'ik Chuun M'arh
Vua'spar interdictor
A-vek Iiluunu


Planned for Chiss Ascendancy expansion:
Asdroni Frigate
Nuruodo Broadside Frigate
Ormos Fleet Carrier
Vigilance Gunship
Chaf Destroyer
Prolipsi Interdictor
Warlord Gunboat
Syndic Destroyer
Ascendancy Star Destroyer
Phalanx Destroyer
Peltast Star Destroyer
Intego Destroyer


Not Planned but Possible (if there's demand):
EF76 Nebulon-B frigate
MC80a cruiser
Home One
Victory-I
Victory-III
Millennium Falcon
TIE Raptor
TIE Phantom
Bayonet-class light cruiser (model's textures are not working in SE - help appreciated)
Guardian-class light cruiser (model's textures are not working in SE - help appreciated)
Death Star
Death Star II
IPV-I System Patrol Craft
Executor-class super star destroyer
Missile Boat
Star Galleon-class frigate
Galaxy Gun


O========================O

Over a decade since I've joined CFC and I've finally started making units. Hurrah for Civ3!

I don't own modelling software, so I've never attempted to make units...until I realized: Space Engine (and SoaSE!) can model starships for me!

So I booted up Space Engine, plopped a Venator Star Destroyer (which I'm pretty sure I got from here) and took some pics. Ran it through Civ3FlcEdit and here is the result. This is definitely just the first of quite a few Star Wars units I'll be uploading prior to the release of Star Wars: The Mod Awakens.

Once I upload all of my units, I'll turn to adding links to all the other Star Wars units on the database, in order to make this a true Star Wars Unit Thread.

*I'm sorry I'm not a super unit-animator, guys. I was sad we didn't have some important Star Wars units so I went about trying to make them myself, as best I can.

 

That´s great, that we receive some new Star Wars ships ... and also thank you very much for the link to Space Engine.
I´m curious about the new Star Wars mod: The Mod awakens and the map that is used in this mod.

 

Thanks for your interest Civinator! I will tell you that it's a full galaxy map, has some ~150(?) star systems, just guesstimating.

Also, I'm uploading the Vindicator Heavy Cruiser right now.


Vindicator
(as usual the colors in the preview are messed up)

here's the TMA galaxy map:

 

Liberty-type Star Cruiser is uploaded.


Liberty

NOTE: preview gif has broken colors

 

Nice, these look great! One thing we don't have enough of, is a variety of space ships. Good job!

 

Thanks a bunch Blue that means a lot coming from you, as a majority of quality Star Wars units are the result of your work. and they're great

Am starting work on the Nebulon B2: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Nebulon-B2_frigate Should finish that tonight or tomorrow.
then I'll do either the Eclipse or maybe the Allegiance or Titan-class Star Destroyers:
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Eclipse-class_dreadnought
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Allegiance-class_battlecruiser

^the non-canon Titan (is basically a mashup of an Imperial and an Allegiance)

Also, I would love feedback on these units. I can't really do anything fancy but if you guys think the blaster bolts should be faster or have more weapons shooting or something like that, let me know

 

Nah, most of "mine" were re-uploads from previous users during the first Database migration, where I and several others uploaded inactive unit creator's units, to populate the database. My list of units is fairly small, mostly conversions, M-Units, and palette adjustments.

I did a few recoloring of units myself, such as an Imperial Star Destroyer, Accumulator Assault Ship, and I fixed one of Delta Strife's space ships, but mostly those were because the palette needed to be adjusted from Civ-colored lasers to non-civ colored, or in Delta Strife's case, one of the colors accidentally got assigned one of the smoke/partial transparency colors.

I haven't looked at how they look in Flcster or in game, but one of the things you can do to improve the Liberty at least, is to decrease the contrast a little bit, if only from an aesthetic point of view that the parts in the light contrast too much with the shadowed parts of it. (yes, that's unrealistic, but it's an aesthetics part)


Secondly, the lasers are very defined, as they look like colored lines drawn onto it. Without motion from the ship, it makes the attack animation look a bit stiff if they are facing off against each other, kind of like Civ 2's still images smacking against each other before one disappears.

If you have access to something slightly fancier, like Paint.net, gimp, etc where you have access to layers, you can consider making the lasers a little bit thicker, and then blurring them slightly before overlaying it on top of the ship. This gives it a bit more character than a crisp single color, 1 pixel wide laser, and because of the transparency effect when you finally export it, it will look a bit more like an actual laser fired over the ship, as around the edges are more ship colored than the rest of it. This is expensive in terms of colors dedicated to the lasers, and it gets a bit messy once the lasers pass over the magenta where it starts mixing with the invisible pink instead of the ship's hull (where it's not easy just hijacking the smoke and partial transparency colors at the end of the unit palette to work with, so you'll have to replace those colors manually) and it may be easier to just have them drop off in saturation/brightness once off the ship instead.

If your models are strapped for colors, you can consider using civ-specific lasers to achieve this effect, and just accept that it won't look good with the Pink/Pine Green/Brown colored civs.

Another way to improve it, is if the lasers were actually fired at some target in the forward facing attacks (such as the Vindicator's lasers converging to a point), rather than aimed at some target far away that the attacks don't converge.
Ex:


They don't have to create the fancy explosions like Jobiwan7's or TheMorpheus' does, but it is useful in hiding the lasers as they reach the end of the animation rather than have them travel until it reaches the edge of the frame and arbitrarily removing them, but it also costs a few colors, so don't spend too many colors on that as well. The downside for the fancy explosions is that you'll have to line it up properly where a unit is actually going to be, otherwise it will look weird exploding farther behind the unit, or not even reaching it.


Third, for the first two ships, the Venator and Vindicator, in the .gif animation you have, there seems to be a green dot where the lasers are coming from that persists until it stops firing altogether. I'm not sure how noticeable it is in game, but one other way to improve it is to remove it when it is on cooldown altogether.

 

Thanks for the detailed reply!

So far I've found working with the palette to be a major pain in the butt...but I'll certainly give the fuzzy blasters a shot. I am kind of worried about it mixing with the ff00ff pink. Always had so many problems with that in the past haha. As a matter of fact I'm not even making custom palettes for these units, I'm just using palettes from others that have workable colors...I don't even want to touch the palette, as little as I have to. It looks far more complicated than civ3 palettes usually do. I could use the civ colors, but maybe it's just a personal style choice, but I prefer thinner blaster bolts. I've noticed my bolts are getting progressively longer and faster haha. Also, the Liberty really does look far better in flcster. Converting to a gif seems like it reduces the color count and re-indexes.

Don't really need fancy explosions, most blasters shots should dissipate on shields anyway, they're not explosives and it does rob a bunch of colors (and time). Firing at a fixed point seems viable to me, but a lot of these starships have broadside attacks, and broadside v broadside looks great when there are lasers aimed all along the hull.

The green dot was actually intentional, meant to show the charged turbolasers but I can see how that might look strange. I decided to dispose of it on the Liberty as the red was not very visible, and the Mon Calamari turbolaser batteries are recessed in design compared to the Star Destroyers with very visible and large external turbolaser cannons. Perhaps I'll go back and remove those, or at least make them persistent so they don't disappear at the end of the animation.

Thank you for the feedback!

 

Palettes aren't bad after you understand what is used with what. For the most part, the first 4 rows are civ-colors, and the last 2 are transparencies and smoke/fog. The rest you can use for the unit. For reference:

(courtesy of Vuldacon)
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/messing-with-unit-palettes-civ-color.612864/#post-14708871

One option when blurring the turbolasers with the magenta pink is to recolor the pink to black (or some other appropriately dark color) first, and then swap the unmodified black back to pink after the turbolaser colors are set properly just before you convert it with Flcster.

As for the broadsides, broadsides indeed look better when firing off in parallel lines, rather than converging together. The results of converging shots in broadside attacks look quite strange if done too sharply.

 

Praise be to Vuldacon. I will study this diagram closely, big time thank you.

I see what you're saying, I can manage this. We'll see what I come up with.

 

The Nebulon B2 Frigate is uploaded. The blasters on this look far better; I blurred them a little and they look fantastic. The firing animation also syncs beautifully with the sound file.


Nebulon B2


NOTE: preview gif has broken colors and is much slower than in-game.

 

Hey Bluemofia, or anyone that can help me, why in the world does this keep happening? My unit's palette does have 256 colors...

 

Hmm, are you able to upload the source file itself? The 160 number looks suspicious, as it seems to be the colors excluding the transparencies and civ-color rows, so it's somewhere to start checking.

 

Yeah, I've attached it below. It's very strange, makes no sense. I indexed to 160 first to get the colors for the unit, then I added all the transparencies and the smoke and civ colors. And for some reason it doesn't pick up those colors...? There are 256 on the palette. I mean, the majority of those transparency/civ/smoke colors are not even used in the storyboard, so could that be it? I don't understand why it won't take it.

 

I was able to reproduce the error (but with a different number) and was able to resolve it by creating the storyboard/unit with the following steps:

Step 1: Export out the palette.


Step 2: Use "Selective" in setting up the palette, and select the palette you just exported:


Step 3: Continue on as usual.

 

This is great, Bluemofia, thank you; however GIMP exports palettes as .gpl files and it seems civ3flcedit can't read them do I just need to download some palette converter, or am I doing something wrong?

It works! Thanks again, Bluemofia! I downloaded a palette converter from some Pokemon forum haha and it works well.

 

Uploaded the Mandalorian Kandosii-type dreadnought. 'Twas a pain to make because I didn't have a model, instead I used the images provided on Fractalsponge. Thanks for your help, Bluemofia. The palette was certainly a pain to get right.


Kandosii-type dreadnought
preview has broken colors

 

...and the Hammerhead-class cruiser is uploaded.


Hammerhead

colors are borked in the preview as usual

 

Allegiance-class Battlecruiser uploaded and ready for battle

(outdated attack flc)

Allegiance

warning: colors be borked in the preview

 

One improvement for the Allegiance Battlecruiser is that the lasers don't extend far enough out when shooting in some directions, especially the East and West directions. In there, the turbolasers don't clear the front of the ship, but because of the 240x240 size limit, there's not a whole lot you can do with that beyond an overall resizing of the unit, or re-rendering it to use broadside turbolasers instead (this may be a better option in the long run, as the Allegiance is supposed to be an outsized Star Destroyer, so making it the same size doesn't feel right).

It may look off when compared to other ships that you've made if you end up resizing it later, especially if other ships are all working with a different scale, but that's one of the long term considerations you'll have to keep in mind when making units. You also need to be careful with really large ships, as the units will start to overlap if they take up multiple tiles, and can look bad.

One other tip to improve animation quality (at the cost of more work) is to render more frames for a unit, but change the animation speed to a faster rate. Sure, it will increase file sizes and work as a consequence (and at some point, it becomes too much work for too little gain to bother with), but the animations will become smoother as a result.